A Message for Big Campaign Donors

Have you had enough?

 Your money was so effective at promoting your favorite candidates through fine-tuned scientific messaging, you got to pick most of the winners and drive their agendas.  On issues where most of you were aligned, like tax reductions and deregulation, your blitzkrieg overwhelmed the rest of us.  On narrower issues, no one paid attention, so your quiet influence snuck past us.  The magic messaging of “job creator” patriots persuaded regular folk to support candidates who shifted more wealth to the wealthy, let speculators fleece our homes and jeopardize our environment.

 And there wasn’t much downside, right?  Sure, you altered some facts and distorted perceptions by leveraging the psychological vulnerabilities of voters, but just a little bit.  And you scraped just a little from the top of an economy that would grow regardless of what you did, even if that growth was mostly captured by a few.

 But you you can’t use your money to get what you want from the system without it changing the system. Even if what you want is good, the damage to our Republic from perceived corruption is far greater. Average people believe you own the government, voting is a corrupted process or simply pointless. The character of the people who get elected are some of the worst among us because they are simply the best at trading favors for your money. Citizens no longer expect the government to do what is right simply because it is right. That loss of trust undermines every aspect of our economy, community and safety.

And it allowed one of your craziest billionaires to use your formula to take power for himself, and for others play your game; like Russia, China and Saudi Arabia, and some sinister actors with bigoted agendas or ideological goals to end our Republic. Your messages are very effective without anyone knowing who you are, so why can’t an anonymous “deep state insider” create schemes so effective, they can mix-in supernatural forces and adapt the storyline to explain-away real events?

 The dark-money cover created for you was used by others to build a cult.

This culminated in some American citizens, wielding the flag as a weapon, busting the doors of Congress and hunting its members to ensure the continuing reign of that crazy billionaire.  It takes little to imagine what would have come next if that violent mob had just been a little quicker; the deaths of Congressional leaders and a vice president, hostages on the chamber floors, a speech that night from the dear leader imposing martial law given to a pliable population and military finally ready for a strongman to restore order.  Soon after, an inauguration postponed, an “investigation” of the election requiring a do-over, unruly reporters jailed… America would have never emerged from martial law.  This is how republics die.

 And the Republican Party that emerged from the Trump era is now openly threatening you by explaining that it was actually protection money you have been paying all along, so if you don’t keep paying and fall in line with their agenda, you are their next target. That is how the Mob works.

Have you had enough?  Can we reset?  Can we finally address what one hundred years of corruption has wrought?

Let’s establish a new set of rules where big money interests won’t drive sophisticated political campaigns targeting our citizens, controlling our politicians or subjecting themselves to extortion.  Let’s leave no room for anonymous foreign and sinister powers to victimize the naïve, distort our debate and interfere in our elections.  We can do this without compromising our free speech or the press.  In fact, the marketplace free expression, stripped of the science, polish and distribution power of big money, and joined by newly audible common folk who lack those resources, will grow to become the antidote to the concentration and abuse of power, just as the Framers intended.

With this new set of rules, political shortcuts will give way to hard work and innovation, on an even playing-field where cheaters lose their ability to use our government to get ahead.

If we modernize the Constitution to cope with Information Age media, you can stop wondering which politicians were bought by your competitors and no will longer be obliged to compete in the bribery game or be extorted by candidates. You will save the money you now spend advertising for candidates to instead advertise for your business, or buy another machine, add some employees, or pay your stockholders a little more.  Business investments will deliver far more economic growth than graft will, and all of us will get to keep our Republic.

Michael J. Kyvik